


AxialMatt: Origins

by rage_quitter



Series: Immortal FAHC Origin Stories [8]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Immortality, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rage_quitter/pseuds/rage_quitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe he should have paid more attention when building a skyscraper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AxialMatt: Origins

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for mention of suicide.

Matt Bragg moved to New York City as soon as he could. South Carolina sucked, and there was no need for people with his interest in architecture and mechanics there. New York, though, they were building massive buildings, and they needed workers. If he could get a job there, even simple menial labor, he could work his way up the metaphorical skyscraper of labor and become an architect. That was the plan, anyway.

He was twenty five years old in 1930, and construction on the Empire State Building had been going on for a while by the time he was employed; he was very excited for his first day on the job.

It was… not as great as he had hoped.

The height was dizzying, the work was not easy, and he was sure he’d never rid the taste of metal from his mouth as he gripped nails and screws between his lips when he climbed and helped move steel beams. His hands, although already calloused from building in his backyard throughout his childhood and adolescence, hurt terribly. The other workers made fun of him for being the newbie and tried to take his lunch until he scrambled onto a more precarious ledge to eat.

But still, he reminded himself as he headed home the first day, sweaty and dirty and exhausted, he was helping to build what would be the biggest building in the world! He wrote a letter to his parents that night, playing off the difficult work as much more fun than it was and telling them more about the city itself, how busy and beautiful it was. Not that he saw too much in the tiny apartment he lived in, but that was beside the point. Didn’t want to make his parents worry too much about their only son.

He took to wrapping his hands in gauze to protect them from the work, and also because leather gloves were too slippery. He befriended some of the other workers after a while, proving that he was excellent at building, even if he looked too lanky and thin to move such heavy things. He chatted with them on lunch breaks, sitting on steel beams hundreds of feet above the street, talking about building model cars with his father in his home in South Carolina, the architectural masterpieces he’d designed in school, his plans of becoming the world’s next great architect. They sang as they built, off key for the most part, but Matt wasn’t too bad and they joked that he should join a barber shop quartet when the building was finished. He joked that he’d take them up on it.

One month, two weeks, and three days after he began working on the Empire State Building, his work abruptly stopped.

It was a hot day, clear skies, and the building was going well. It was shortly after lunch and the men were hard at work. As they worked, Matt was talking to a man from a nearby Native American reservation about his culture, something not many of the other workers had really bothered to do.

In his distraction, Matt misstepped.

He heard the other workers scream as his own scream of terror was ripped from his throat.

The ground was moving really, really fast towards him.

He didn’t even feel it when he fell eighty stories and shattered half of the bones in his body on the sidewalk.

He woke up feeling like he was still falling. His clothes were damp with sweat and the scars of his rough childhood were replaced by new, shiny, silver tissue marring his arms and chest and neck.

“Hey, buddy, you okay there?”

Matt looked up, startled at the voice. “Um, I… I…”

The man held out a hand. “What’re you lying on the ground for? Need a ride somewhere?”

Matt shakily grabbed his hand. “Where- am I still in New York?”

The man laughed as he hauled Matt to his feet. “Better lay off the bottle, buddy. It’ll getcha in trouble. Sure you’re all right?”

“I think so… I… I think I just… I just fell off the Empire State Building.”

The man patted him on the back. “Drunken dreams are bizarre. You ain’t dead, trust me, heaven would look nothing like this dump of a city. Unless it’s hell.” He laughed at his own joke. “Go on home, then, before you get hurt.”

Matt mechanically walked down the familiar streets of New York, and he still felt like he was falling when he got home and curled up on his bed.

He slept for a day and a half, and when he woke up famished, he read over that day’s newspaper over late lunch. He nearly choked on his sandwich as he read the headline.

Man falls off Empire State Building and lives?

He leaned forward and pushed his glasses up as he read the article. It reported that witnesses had seen a man fall from the top of the unfinished building, and that the workers had said it was one of the other employees, but no one found a body. It was like he’d vanished.

Did he actually, really, fall off the Empire State Building yesterday?

Matt looked at his arm, at the strange scars on his skin. His hands trembled.

Quickly, Matt finished his food and made a dash to put clothes on. He made sure to get a wide brimmed hat this time, low over his face, and his collar popped, despite the heat. He made his way through the teeming streets of the city to a nearby medical center.

The doctor introduced himself once Matt had been called into the examination room. “Well, sir, what seems to be the problem?”

“I, uh, I got in an accident a few years ago,” Matt lied. “I don’t really remember any of what happened, but now I’ve got these scars, and I’m curious as to how they might’ve happened.”

“That’s a bit unusual, but I’ll see what I can do,” the doctor replied. “Let’s see them, sir.”

Matt unbuttoned and removed his shirt as per instructions and showed the doctor the scars. The man looked shocked, confused, and horrified all at once as he examined them closely.

“I… I must be honest, I’ve never seen scars like these before,” the doctor confessed. “Normally the skin is a little bit pinkish white, but these are more… silver.”

Matt nodded. “That was why I thought I should see a professional.”

“My best guess is… whatever happened must have been absolutely horrible. I don’t understand how you’re alive, not to mention perfectly healthy otherwise. It… It looks like you broke your spine. These scars on your collarbone appear to be as tough the bone there went through your skin, and the same on your arm here.” The doctor tapped the areas with a finger. “But there’s nothing other than scars, at all.”

Matt stared down at his arm. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, son.” The doctor performed a few other basic tests, taking his heart rate, breathing, reflexes. “There doesn’t seem to be anything else wrong. Unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about the scars.”

Matt nodded. “I assumed as much. Thank you, doctor.”

Matt got another job, this time building cars. He went about his life as normally as possible, not returning to the Empire State Building during its building. His former boss contacted him, but he only replied curtly and refused to speak with anyone else about the incident, least of all the other workers. In his spare time he was at the library, scouring every resource for any reason he was alive. Because he definitely fell of the Empire State Building and died.

He didn’t find anything.

The building opened the next year, and he was bittersweet as he watched it happen. He’d helped with that, so he was proud, very proud, but…

He moved a few blocks away a couple months later.

Two years later he realized it wasn’t a one-time thing, when the rope did its job and he found himself wandering the streets, disoriented and hysterical. He didn’t try again for a while, turning all of his focus into building anything and everything he could. He discovered very quickly that he healed fast, impossibly fast, from nasty injuries he should have needed to see a doctor about.

By the time America entered war with Germany, he realized he wasn’t aging, either. He looked as young as he had when he’d died. He enlisted, of course. If he couldn’t die, hell, he’d use it for his country. He wouldn’t tell anyone else, but he’d sure fight. It would be a welcome distraction from the looming building he didn’t want to let go of.

It sucked, to be frank.

Bullets weren’t the worst way to go, he’d find later, but certainly better than the disease that ate his flesh away as he writhed in agony in a medical tent near the German border.

As soon as he could, he moved from fighting to building equipment. He wasn’t bad with a gun, really, and he was surprised by his own skill with sniping. He faked an injury, and spent a while working on making planes and vehicles. There weren’t a lot of men in that field at the time, since most were on the battlefield, but he got along well with the women there.

After the war and the popularization of cars, Matt’s interests shifted from architecture to mechanics. They were becoming more complex, and he liked to take them apart and put them back together. They got faster, prettier, flashier, and there was good money in fixing cars.

Unfortunately there wasn’t always a market for him in mechanics, and in the late sixties he found himself working in a grocery store.

It was November of 1968. It was a very cold evening. There were a promise of snow in the air, and Matt was tired after working all day. It was near closing time, and he was just waiting for the clock to tick away the last few minutes.

“I’m going to head on home,” said the elderly man who owned the store as he hobbled out from the back room. “Are you all right closing up?”

“Yes, sir. Have a good evening.” Matt liked the old man; he was kind and didn’t question why a young, healthy guy like Matt was doing here instead of fighting overseas in Vietnam.

“You too, Matthew.” The man tipped his hat and left the store.

Matt waited impatiently for a few more minutes, spending most of that time just double checking inventory and making sure there were no messes or anything to take care of. He eagerly left at nine, locking the door behind him and heading for his apartment.

He bumped shoulders with someone on the way. “Oh, sorry, excuse me,” he said instinctively.

“Watch were you’re goin’,” the other person snapped. “Damn kids, you should be over there fighting for your country instead a’ takin’ up all the sidewalk space!”

Matt wasn’t sure how to respond. “Um…. right. Uh, anyway, have a nice night, sir.”

“Why ain’t you over there, huh, kid? You one a’ them no-good communist hippies?”

Matt took a step back. “No, I… I just…”

“Sign up for the draft, make yourself useful!”

“Hey!” The new voice was annoyed. A short man around Matt’s age in looks with an angry expression joined Matt at his side. “He doesn’t have to explain himself to you. You don’t know him, or why he’s not overseas. Quit being a busybody.”

The man looked taken aback.

The new guy grabbed Matt by the arm. “Let’s go.” He tugged Matt around the gaping man in the direction Matt had been going.

“Hey, thanks,” Matt said.

“Yeah, no problem.” The guy had a slight accent, possibly New England. Matt was pretty good at guessing accents, living in New York. “The number of people like him I’ve dealt with. Sheesh.” Boston, Matt thought.

“Yeah, they need to get out of other people’s business. Pretty annoying.”

“You should learn to tell people to go fuck themselves.”

Matt gave him a startled look.

“Hey, man, don’t judge, I’ve got the mouth of a sailor, okay?”

Matt laughed. “No, don’t worry, I do too. Just not used to hearing people curse like that in public.”

“I’m Jeremy, by the way.”

“I’m Matt. Nice to meet you.”

“Same. So what do you do?” They were strolling casually now, like friends.

“I work in a grocery store. It’s not ideal, but it pays the bills. You?”

“I, uh, I do freelance work. Trying to get into music, but it’s a tough business, and I just can’t really find a genre I like much.”

“That’s pretty cool. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Hey, sorry, couldn’t help but notice, you have, uh, some interesting scars on your arm there.”

Matt pulled his sleeve down over his hand. “Yeah, it was, um, from, an accident when I was a kid.”

“Must’ve been a nasty accident.” Jeremy had looked towards Matt’s neck with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah… I don’t really remember it,” Matt lied again.

“Weird. I kinda have scars like that.” Jeremy pulled down the collar of his shirt to show Matt the jagged silvery mark on his upper chest. “Never seen anyone else with silver scars like me before.”

Could it be…? No way. “That’s pretty weird.” Matt looked up to see they were across the street from his apartment building. “Oh, here’s my building. Sorry to cut this short.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Nice meeting you.” Jeremy shook Matt’s hand. “See you around.”

Matt was halfway across the street when a car slammed straight into him.

“Shit,” he said as soon as he woke up a few blocks away.

Internally panicking, he made his way back home, hoping that Jeremy hadn’t seen him die. He’d probably have called an ambulance, if he had.

When he cautiously turned the corner to his street, there was no ambulance, and Jeremy was nowhere to be seen. Matt sighed in relief and went into the building.

He froze. In the lobby, reading a magazine, Jeremy was sitting in a chair like he belonged there. Matt stared at him.

Jeremy looked up and brightened. “I knew it!” He set down the magazine and walked over. “Just to let you know, I did not plan that. Don’t think I’m some kind of crazy guy, all right?”

Mat spluttered. “You- but you- but I- huh?”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Scars, man. I’m the only person until now that I’ve met who has silver scars. I don’t know what happened to you, but it must’ve been pretty bad if it’s all over you like that. I got, uh, I got impaled during a flood, in 1919.”

“Wait- you can- you can do it, too?”

“Yep. Never knew what happened after I died. Did you know we just sort of crumble into dust? Pretty cool.”

Matt crinkled his nose at the thought. “That’s weird.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Wait a minute, you saw me get hit by a car and didn’t call an ambulance or anything? You son of a bitch!”

Jeremy laughed. “Did I need to?”

Matt crossed his arms. “Fair enough.”

The two became very fast friends, travelling around New York City as neighbors became suspicious of their lack of aging. Jeremy found work after a while in the quickly growing drug business, and Matt went back to mechanics. Matt was annoyed by how Jeremy had apparently refused to grow up with the times until meeting him, and had to help him get, and then stay, up to date.

At some point in the early 2000s, they heard wind of a crew across the country. Normally they wouldn’t care, but from the news reports, they sounded like they may be, though the two dared hope to dream, immortal. They began paying closer attention.

It was impressive. Very much so, what little information they could find. They weren’t too into criminal activity, other than Jeremy’s drug dealings and underground rap battles, but the possibility of other immortals… besides, with an inability to die, what did it matter if one was engaged in dangerous illegal shenanigans? It had to be more fun than what they were doing now, anyway.

Jeremy used his drug connections to smuggle the pair some weapons and they planned out a trip across the country. Matt hated to say goodbye to the building that killed him, but Jeremy was more than happy to board the plane to Los Santos.

Crime was both easy and not, they found. Jeremy easily settled into the vast drug ring, and Matt was good at fixing weapons and modifying cars. It opened door into information exchange, and then into arms dealing. Matt didn’t question where his dealer got the guns, and didn’t question who came to buy them.

When exactly they were noticed by the Crew, they didn’t really know. Ray, as they later learned his name, came after Jeremy at some point. Jeremy came back one day complaining about the asshole who put a bullet in his knee and warned him to stay off his turf. “It’s not his! I’ve never seen the guy before now! I got every right to pander my wares there, fuck that guy!” Shortly after, his dealer vanished off the face of the earth.

And then there was the irritated man with ginger hair swearing into a phone as Matt installed bulletproof tires on his ridiculously flashy orange and red four door. Matt didn’t question why someone who couldn’t be older than twenty six wanted a souped up armored car, not in this city. But red flags flew in his head when he spotted the golden pistol under the passenger seat.

It was a slow day when it happened. Matt was sitting in his mechanic shop picking his nails while Jeremy was perched on a workbench scrawling lyrics into a notebook. The old radio on the counter was on low volume, and the ceiling fan creaked overhead.

The door chimed cheerfully. Matt and Jeremy jumped at the sound, and scrambled to look professional.

“Hey, welcome to Axial Repair and Wear, how can…”

The radio continued to play softly beyond the gentle static as the two stared in shock at the grinning skull who entered the shop, one hand resting too casually on the holster at his waist.

The Vagabond.

**Author's Note:**

> Jeremy's origins will continue from this, don't worry.


End file.
